That Perfect Imperfection
by Tallulah99
Summary: Post-series. Walt attempts to adjust to retirement, but fails successfully when a missing-persons case falls between the cracks in jurisdictions and demands his attention. Meanwhile, he's learning what it takes to make a life with Vic Moretti, and how things don't always go according to plan, but that love is the most perfect imperfection and well worth the risks.
1. Chapter 1

I was only gone for two days the first time I went treasure hunting with Lucian's map. It wasn't that I was uninterested or uninspired by the idea, but after the first day, nearly all I could think about was the sight of Vic, sitting on my porch with a cup of coffee in her hand, seeing me off on my fool's errand with a smile on her face.

I half thought she might return to her motorhome while I was gone. When I got back, I was relieved to find that she was still at the cabin, welcoming me home with that same smile. And then, ten minutes after I was done washing the dust off of my trail-weary body, she had welcomed me back into her bed, which, for the time being anyway, appeared to be located in my bedroom.

The second time I went out, I lasted four days. The third time, I was gone for six days, but that was only because the horse threw a shoe down in the Otter Creek Valley and it was a two-day walk back to the land of cell phone reception with a lame horse in tow. The gaps between each trip got longer and longer, and I was less and less sure of what it was I was really searching for while I was out there. Treasure? I'm not sure I ever really believed that it existed. And, even if I found it, what was I going to do with it? Retire and live out my days on a five-hundred acre ranch in Big Sky Country?

On my fourth trip, nearly three months after Lucian's death, I finally found what I had been searching for.

I was two days out, retracing the same steps I had taken on my previous route with a plan to turn east where I had last turned west, thinking that perhaps Lucian's map was merely 180 degrees out of phase. The sun had made its escape for the day, and the autumn air quickly turned chilly. I settled the horse down near the bank of the Powder River with a bag of feed while I unpacked my saddle bags and brought out my sleeping roll. The fire had started to lick around the edges of the kindling, and I was grateful for the tiny tendrils of warmth. Perhaps it was my age, or perhaps it was merely remembering how much warmer my bed back home was now that Vic was in it, but the nights on the plains seemed much colder than they once had.

I unrolled the cold weather sleeping bag Vic had bought for me ("If you're going to prance around the countryside like an idiot, at least this way you won't be a hypothermic idiot"), and lay back on it with my head propped up against the horse's saddle. The fire crackled, the horse moved restlessly at the end of her tether, and night insects sang cheerfully in the darkness. I tilted my hat across my face and was just starting to drift off when someone kicked my boots apart and demanded, "What's all this horse shit, then?"

I was up fast and moving with the Colt already half out of its holster before I realized that the narrow figure looming over me with a sour expression on its face was Lucian.

He was dressed in the same blue-checked Western shirt and brown jacket he'd been wearing the last time I had seen him alive, and he had his hands parked on his hips like he was squaring up for a fight, which Lucian generally was.

"Why in seven hells are you out here in this godforsaken wilderness, Troop?" he demanded.

"Lucian," I said, by way of greeting. I stuffed my gun back in it's holster and stood, feeling at something of a disadvantage with the shade of my former boss towering over me. "You're looking…"

"Dead. I'm looking dead. Yeah, I know it."

Lucian cocked his usual black Stetson Open Road model hat back on his head and regarded me with with his chin tilted belligerently upwards. "So that's my excuse for being out here in the ass end of nowhere. What's yours?"

"My excuse?" For anyone else, perhaps, the idea of running into someone who had died several months prior out in the middle of the Wyoming desert might have been a little off-putting. For me, it had become just another peculiar facet of living at the epicenter of mysticism that is Absaroka County and its thereabouts. Lucian wasn't the first ghost I'd seen. I suspect he won't be the last.

"Yeah. What the hell are you doing out here surrounded by dirt, rocks and lizard piss when you could be back at your place warming up the sheets with that purty little deputy of yours?"

There was no point in trying to discourage Lucian from objectifying Vic. For one thing, he was already dead, and I'd imagine, at this point, far past any hope of self-improvement. For another, she had never let Lucian's propensity for colorful misogyny bother her overmuch. And if I needed a third reason, he also had a point. I'd been asking myself the same thing on and off for months.

"I retired."

"I'm happy to hear you took at least some of the advice I gave you over the years. But you still haven't answered my question. Why are you out here?"

"Well, I just thought somebody ought to pick up where you left off looking for the Anson-Hamilton treasure, so…"

Lucian made a disparaging sound in the back of his throat and spit into the dirt. "That is the absolute most bullshit thing I've ever heard in my life, Walt."

"Well, I didn't think…"

"You are a twenty-gallon fool in a ten-gallon hat, you know that?"

He shook his head and looked as though he'd never been more disappointed with an individual in his entire life. I'd been his deputy for a good number of years before he retired, so I was more than passingly familiar with that particular facial expression.

"Did you ever stop to wonder why I spent so much time working on that damn riddle? You think I was really hoping I'd find the treasure and live out the rest of my days in luxurious splendor?" He dug one booted heel into the dirt. "Naw, Troop. Life has to have a purpose. And when you ain't got family and you ain't got that tin star pinned to your chest anymore, you gotta come up with something else to keep yourself going. Anson-Hamilton was my purpose. Get your own."

My mouth kicked up into a lopsided smile. "Is that a direct order, boss?"

He gave a bark of laughter. "Hell, no. I'm dead. I can't give orders anymore - not that you ever listened worth a damn when I was still alive. No, son, this is something you gotta decide for yourself. Can't nobody head down your path but you."

He strolled over to my saddle bag and nudged at it with his foot. The coffee can that contained his ashes rolled free. He stopped it with the worn bottom of his boot. "This me?"

"Yep."

"You planning on leaving me with the treasure?"

I nodded into the darkness. "If I could find it."

Lucian laughed. "I have never met anybody else who could turn fidelity into a character flaw the way that you do." He took his hat off and slapped it against his leg like he was knocking trail dust loose from the brim. "You know, it wasn't your fault."

I blinked at him. "What wasn't?"

He tapped his toe against the coffee can. "This."

I was unsure of how to respond, so I merely looked down at the Folgers can as though it might offer me some insight into what I was doing with my life, or maybe in the short term, why I was having this conversation with Lucian.

"I feel like you're not hearing me, Troop."

"No, I hear you."

"Then you're not listening."

"I'm listening."

"Bullshit."

I sighed. "Say what you gotta say, Lucian."

"I done said it, boy. See, I knew you wasn't listening. I'm gonna say it one more time, and I want you to really hear me this time - it's not your fault that I'm dead. I made a choice, and I made it for all the right reasons. You're a good man, Walt. Tucker Baggett was not. For that matter, neither was my good-for-nothing brother. The world is a better place with them gone. Hell, me too, probably."

I breathed through the heavy pressure on my chest, but said nothing.

Lucian went on, but his voice had lost its sharper edges. "It's time to forgive yourself, Walt. Time to move on. Enough with the treasure hunting. It's not doing me any good, and you don't really want it anyway. Not meaning to sound all poetical in my ethereal state, but I think your treasure's waiting for you back home. And you need to get back to it."

He settled his hat back on his head and turned around in a brief circle, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Here's good."

"What?"

"There's a good piece of land, a bit of the Powder River, and the Bighorns in the distance." He nodded. "Yeah, here's good."

"You sure?" I watched him carefully, but there was nothing but certainty on his craggy face.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Alright."

He nodded once more into the distance as if he was settling something within himself. "You still have a life left to live, Troop. How about you head back home and get on with it?" He gave me a grin that Vic would have called 'shit-eating'. "And how about when you get there, you give Deputy Moretti a good one, and tell her it's from me?"

Down near the water, the horse snorted and stomped, her shoe ringing out loud against a rock in the darkness. I glanced over, and when I looked back, Lucian was gone. In his place sat a black and brown long-eared owl, one gimlet eye staring balefully down at me from its perch on a low branch of a cottonwood tree. It ruffled its feathers against the chill, and then, presumably deciding that present company was lacking, it spread its wings and took flight, disappearing at once into the darkness beyond the meager reach of the firelight.

I said my last goodbye to Lucian Connelly the following morning just as the sun crested the mountains and set the world on fire. The wind came and took him gently away, calling him out to his last rest among the juniper and sagebrush, a permanent part of the hard and unforgiving land he had spent so much of his life protecting.

"So long, old man," I said out loud. I removed my hat and bowed my head for a long moment, letting the tears for my friend run unchecked down my cheeks.

And then, wrapped in the absolution I had been seeking, I turned and headed for home.

I didn't want to push the horse too hard, but I was ready to get home, and we made good time on the ride back. Knowing where I was going and what I wanted when I got there was an unfamiliar and welcome feeling.

I drove the horse trailer into the yard in front of my cabin shortly before midnight. I had already unsaddled the horse and given her a thorough rub down before I had loaded her up back at the trailhead, so all that was left was to turn her loose in the paddock for the night with fresh water and the rest of the feed I'd packed for the trip. She kicked her heels up in appreciation for being back on home turf before she settled down to graze. I kind of knew how she felt.

The cabin was quiet and dark when I let myself in. Vic's truck was parked outside, right where it tended to be when she was off-duty as of late, but it wasn't until I pushed open the bedroom door and saw her there, asleep on her back, that I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

She was turned toward the door, her hair spread out across my pillow in a fan of dark gold, the usual stern lines of her face gentled by sleep. My chest squeezed tight in the general vicinity of my heart, and I thought of Lucian's words.

A truly honorable man would have let her sleep.

On my best day, I am merely a somewhat honorable man.

She stirred when I slid onto the mattress next to her, slowly gaining awareness as I drew her into my arms.

"Walt?" Her voice was husky with sleep, and I felt a jolt low in my gut, like someone had just driven a fist into my solar plexus, but in a good way. I drew in a breath.

"It's me."

"Well, thank God. I'd hate to think someone else was reaping the rewards of me sleeping naked in your bed."

I laughed.

"You're back early… Is everything okay?"

"It's fine," I said. "Everything's fine." I buried my face in her hair, breathing in her clean, warm scent.

She stretched, bringing her body flush with my own, and the heat of her skin replaced every other thought in my brain.

"I'm glad you're back." She nuzzled her face into the crook of my shoulder and then hummed appreciatively. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too." I drew back and kissed her softly.

She made a face and turned away. "Ugh. Don't. I have morning breath."

"I don't care," I said, and captured her lips again. She responded, just as she had every time I had turned to her in the months since we had first consummated our relationship. There was still some level of uncertainty between us, and neither of us had made promises for the future, but she had never given anything less than all of herself when we came together, and this time was no exception.

I was tired and sore, so when she rolled me onto my back, I voiced no objection. She floated over me like something out of one of my more enjoyable dreams, but she was all heat and smooth skin, solid and real, far better than anything I could have imagined on my own. Her muscular thighs bracketed my waist, strong, nimble fingers working the buttons on my shirt loose with her usual single-mindedness of purpose. The sheets slid down, leaving her completely naked above me, her pale skin glowing in the faint light of the moon that came in through the uncovered window. Only the neat little scar on her lower abdomen marred the smooth perfection of her body.

"You're beautiful," I said, reaching up to twine a lock of her hair around my fingers.

She snorted, and worked the last of my buttons free, pushing impatiently until I rose up far enough to allow her to slip my arms free of the shirtsleeves. "You've been in the saddle too long."

"That's true," I agreed. "But it doesn't make what I said any less accurate."

"And," she went on as though I hadn't spoken. "You're wearing too many clothes."

My shirt went over one of her shoulders, and then she moved further down so she could start working on my belt buckle. I let her have her way, choosing to save my energy so I could trail my hands down her neck and the smooth curve of her bare shoulder.

She moved off of me so she could work my jeans and undershorts down my legs until they joined my shirt on the floor at the end of the bed.

I was ready for her - had been since I walked in the door.

With the sinuous grace of a panther, she prowled back up the length of my body, a crooked, knowing smile on her lips as she straddled my hips. The warm, wet heat of her settled over me and I groaned, closing my eyes against the pleasure that washed over me like an ocean wave.

"God, Vic," I said softly.

"I'm here," she murmured. Then, tilting her hips, she took me inside of herself with a soft moan that went through me like lightening. Reflexively, I grabbed her hips, less to control her movements than to hold on for dear life.

Everything about Vic was intense. She was full of fight and fire, bright and overwhelming as the sun, fierce in all things, but perhaps nowhere as much as in her lovemaking. She was generous, and giving, but demanding at the same time, and I had a feeling that sex with her was never going to get boring, nor was anything else, for that matter.

She moved. And moved. Rising and falling above me, she pressed her hands to my chest and let her head fall back, her hair flowing across her shoulders like a waterfall. She was bathed in moonlight and shadow, her eyes closed, her lips parted, her pink-tipped breasts rising as she moved over me again and again. She was a glorious sight, and I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

I stayed with her, fighting against the rising desire to lose myself in her body. I would wait forever if it meant continuing to watch her seek her own release without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. Her cheeks were flushed, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her breathing started becoming erratic, hitching in her chest as her fingers began to grasp at me, and I felt the muscles in her thighs begin to tremble.

"Come on, Vic," I breathed.

She dug her fingers into my chest and gasped, "Fuck, Walt."

"Yes, ma'am." I grabbed her hands in my own and rolled her onto her back, without ever breaking the contact between our bodies. She moaned as I took over, pressing her down into the mattress with long, slow strokes, applying just the right pressure at just the right spot until she went completely still beneath me, her spine arching up off the bed like a bow as she cried out and pulsed around me. Fierce pride and lust and love sang through my veins, and I followed her, rocking against her as the world went warm and white as a supernova around me.

Afterwards, with the sweat cooling on our skin, and our breathing slowly returning to normal, Vic draped herself across my chest, and lazily drew shapes against my collarbone with her fingertip. "So, you missed me." It wasn't a question. She sounded pleased.

"I did."

"And you're glad you're back."

"I am."

"And you're done with treasure hunting for good now?" This time the question mark was audible. She tilted her head so she could look me in the eye.

I kissed her softly on the lips. "I am."

She nodded as if that was the answer she was expecting, and settled back down with her cheek against my chest. "Good."

I tilted my head down far enough to kiss the top of her hair. "Yep."

After that, I stopped pretending I was hunting for treasure. And Vic stopped pretending she still lived in the motor home.

* * *

A/N: I am, as always, late to the fandom. I stumbled across Longmire on Netflix, and promptly fell in love with the stories and the characters. And, because I can never do anything halfway, I plowed through 6 seasons and fifteen books in under a month, and then realized that I'm not ready to be done with Walt and Vic just yet.

This is going to be a longer story, and I hope to update somewhat regularly. Fair warning, I watched the show and read the books concurrently, so they're a bit conflated in my brain. I'll be mixing what happens in the show with what happens in the books a little bit. It doesn't matter in this chapter, but it'll be noticeable later.

And many thanks to the bestest beta, Katie F, for reading over my nonsense no matter which fandom happens to strike my fancy.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

During the months that I was out channeling the spirit of Jim Hawkins along the Powder River, life in Absaroka County mysteriously went on without me.

Either by virtue of name recognition, the fact that she is the greatest legal mind of our time, or because she ran unopposed, Cady won the mayor's special election by a landslide, and was sworn in as sheriff less than a month after I announced my retirement. She hadn't watched me bulldoze my way through county bureaucracy for nothing, and, within three weeks of taking office, she was already more well-liked by the town than her predecessor had ever been. I wasn't bitter. Or, at least, I'd never admit to it out loud. I liked her better than me, too. Fortunately for all parties involved, she'd gotten her public bedside manner from her mother.

There was a learning curve, of course, but I had taken a good piece of advice from old John Wooden, the "Wizard of Westwood": "Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who will argue with you." Cady had Vic, Ferg and Ruby to help her get started and keep her headed in the right direction once she was up and running. She learned fast, and she learned from the best.

Zach stuck around for the first month, but then, by mutual agreement, and with much mutual longing, he transferred over to Campbell County, so that he and the punk could keep seeing each other without Durant tongues a-waggin' that yet another Longmire was having an inappropriate relationship with their deputy. He was a smart kid with a good head on his shoulders, and I was glad that I had given him another chance. I trusted him to do right by my daughter. And I trusted her to boot his ass to the curb if he didn't.

Vic stayed on as Cady's deputy. There'd been little doubt in my mind that she would choose to remain with the county after I retired. She was young, she was hale, and she was not, and never would be a kick back and take up needlework kind of woman. The granddaughter of a cop, daughter of a cop, and sister to three cops, she had the mind and constitution of a cop. It was a calling as much as it was a profession for her. Sean had dropped her into my world against her will, but it was that same will that had kept her here even after the divorce. I once suggested that perhaps Wyoming had grown on her. She had snorted and said, "Like a fungus," which I took to mean that she couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

I wasn't entirely absent from my old office. Habits die hard, especially the unhealthy ones, so in between bouts of treasure hunting, I regularly stuck my head in the door to make trouble or cajole one of the women in my life into having lunch with me. Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes I got shot emphatically down. On those days I ended up at the Busy Bee with chief cook and bottle washer Dorothy Caldwell for company, having my usual, which was whatever Dorothy decided it was going to be that day.

Once I'd officially retired for the second time in the same calendar year, I was underfoot more frequently, and, I was starting to suspect, I was pushing Cady's patience to its limit.

"Hey, Dad," she called from her office when I wandered in for the second time in a week. "I can't have lunch today. I have a meeting with the mayor." She had her hair pulled up into a ponytail, and was wearing her duty shirt, looking pressed and professional in a way I'd never managed on my best day. It was really no wonder everyone liked her better.

"Hey, Punk," I said. I hitched my thumbs on my belt, feeling a little off-balance without the Colt at my side. There was no legal reason I couldn't carry it anymore, and I still did more often than not, but I always tried to look my least official and most non-threatening when I visited the office. I didn't want to step on my daughter's professional toes if I could help it. "You're meeting with Sawyer? What about?"

"You do know you don't work here anymore, right?" Vic asked. She was leaning back in her chair with her boots propped up on the corner of her desk, her Philadelphia Flyers mug cupped between her hands. She smiled at me over the rim and winked. "I mean, I hate to say it's none of your business, but, if the shoe fits…"

Cady came out of her office, working a stack of file folders into her shoulder bag. "You two play nice." She kissed me on my cheek. "It's just some community outreach ideas that we're looking into putting into the elementary schools. Nothing dire."

"Give it time. He'll make it dire."

Cady almost managed to not roll her eyes. "I'll keep my wits about me. I promise." She grabbed her jacket and turned toward the door. "Oh, and do you mind not absconding with my only deputy? Ferg's out on a disabled vehicle call off of Highway 90, and Ruby had to go pick her granddaughter up from school. She has a fever. So, I need Vic here to field the dozens of phone we'll most definitely be flooded with during the hour I'll be gone."

Vic looked at me. "The phone has rung a grand total of twice today. And the second time was Ferg. He needed directions."

"Didn't Meg buy him one of those GSP things?"

Cady and Vic exchanged a meaningful glance. Cady drew the short straw. "It's GPS, Dad. And yes, but he forgot the charging cable and the battery died."

"I see," I said. "Maybe next time he should consider bringing a map."

There was that meaningful glance again. "I'll mention that when he gets back. I'm sure he'll appreciate the suggestion." She glanced back at the old Seth Thomas clock on her office wall. "Shit. I'm going to be late. Bye, Dad." She kissed me again, and gave my hand a squeeze. "Hold down the fort, Vic?"

Vic saluted. "Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Sheriff."

Cady laughed and returned her salute before she disappeared down the stairs.

Vic listened as her pretty new boss clattered down the front steps, and then turned back to her old, broken down boss. "I am so glad she's the one that gets to deal with all the political bullshit around here. I honestly don't know how she resists the urge to punch Sawyer in the face every time he opens his mouth. I have a hard time myself, and he never even deigns to speak to little lowly ol' me."

"You don't wish you'd gotten the job?" We'd never discussed it, but I wondered suddenly if she had felt slighted when I had all but handed the sheriff position to Cady without ever even discussing it with her.

She gave me an incredulous look. "Are you kidding me? Do I really strike you as someone who could play happy politics with assholes like Sawyer?"

"Well, you're better at it than I ever was, so."

"Yeah, but that bar is ridiculously low, Walt." She smiled to take the sting out of her words, but she wasn't wrong. "Luckily for us all, Cady is not only good at dealing with all the bureaucratic bullshit, she actually enjoys it. It's like watching a maestro conduct a fucking symphony every time some civil servant with a tiny penis waltzes in here and tries to pressure her into supporting some dumbass resolution or another. They never even know what hit 'em. They walk in here thinking they're going to bully the new sheriff into towing the line, and the next thing they know, they're standing back out there on the sidewalk, shaking their heads and trying to figure out how they got roped into volunteering for the Absaroka Days Festival Committee. It's her pet project."

I couldn't help but smile at the visual. "I'm not surprised. Cady has always loved the festival. Especially when she was a kid. I think she was mostly in it for the food, but she liked watching the steer roping competition, too. Martha and I had to take her every year."

My thoughts went wistful at the memory. Suddenly I could smell the popcorn and fried food on the spring air, mingling oddly with the eye-watering eau de cattle that wafted from the nearby livestock tents. I could hear the distorted squawking of the announcer's voice over the loudspeaker, and Cady's delighted, girlish laughter when I handed her the stuffed bear I'd won at the shooting arcade.

Something flickered across Vic's face, but her expression didn't change. "That must be where she developed her fondness for cowboys and bullshit."

"Undoubtedly."

I moseyed over to Vic's desk, and noticed that she'd been playing solitaire on her computer. The half finished piles of cards were still up on her screen. She had a ten to jack move she hadn't seen yet. "Busy day?"

She rolled her eyes and collapsed dramatically back into her chair. "I am so bored. Seriously, Walt, I think the criminal element is more afraid of Cady than they ever were of you. Everyone is behaving themselves, and it's awful. I'm half tempted to go on a shooting spree just so I can have something to do for the rest of the afternoon."

I laughed. "I could go get us lunch and bring it back here?"

She sat up and scooted her chair closer to me. "Or I could just have you for lunch." She smiled and batted her hazel eyes up at me, and then reached for my belt. Rather than attempting to work the buckle loose, however, she merely used it to lever herself upright. Then she sat on the edge of her desk, and used my belt again to tug me forward so I was standing in between her legs.

I let my hands fall to the desk on either side of her thighs. She pressed her cheek to my chest and then butted her forehead against me like a cat. "You smell really good."

"I smell like saddle oil and horse."

She tilted her head and looked up at me, still smiling. "Huh, who would have thought that would be such a provocative scent?"

I smiled, and then leaned forward to place a kiss on her lips. Why not? Nobody else was there, and it wasn't like I was an employee of the county anymore.

Her lips were soft, warm and inviting. I reached up and cupped her face in my hands, angling my head to deepen the kiss without knocking my hat off. She made a low sound of encouragement in the back of her throat and hooked her ankles around the backs of my knees, her hands at my sides. I was just starting to consider the practical feasibility of each of the horizontal surfaces in the office, and even a few of the vertical ones, when I heard a discrete little cough, and an unfamiliar voice behind me said, "Um…excuse me?"

Vic and I both froze. Her eyes went wide. She pressed her lips together and turned quickly away, presumably so she wouldn't laugh out loud, but also callously leaving me to deal with whatever situation it was that had suddenly presented itself behind me.

I turned and saw a woman I didn't recognize standing just inside the front door with her hand still on the knob. She was in her early to mid-forties, with light reddish-brown hair that hung to her shoulders, which she had pinned back with a clip shaped like a butterfly. She was tall and willowy, pretty in an aging flower-child kind of way, an effect that was exacerbated by the voluminous floral caftan that she was wearing belted at her waist. She also had wide blue eyes with which she was studiously examining the wainscoting above our heads.

"I'm, um…sorry to barge in. I didn't realize I needed to knock."

I started to say something disarming, but before I could formulate an appropriate response, she recovered herself and turned to me, "Are you Sheriff Longmire?"

"Yes," I said, just as Vic said, "No, she's not here right now."

Vic glared at me, and then went on. "_No_, he is not Sheriff Longmire. He just thinks he is sometimes. It's a bad habit of his."

I coughed and said, "Sorry. I'm retired. Recently. It's still kind of a habit, so."

The woman's right eyebrow went up, but otherwise she betrayed no particular emotion. "Your name is Longmire?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"But the current sheriff is Longmire too, right?"

Vic, already losing patience with our modern rendition of "Who's on First", got up out of her chair. "This is Walt Longmire, he's the old sheriff, but he is _retired_," She enunciated the last word and gave me a severe look. "The current sheriff is the pretty one you must have just passed on the sidewalk. Her name is also Longmire, because she's his daughter."

The stranger looked at me again. "Family business, is it?"

I shrugged. "So far."

Vic elbowed me aside and smiled at our guest. "I'm sorry. Let's try this again. I'm Deputy Moretti. Is there something I can help you with?"

"I don't know," she said. "I hope so." She took a deep breath and dove into the enormous purse she carried strapped across her chest like a shotgun bandolier. "It's my son. I think he's missing." She resurfaced with a small 3x5 photograph clutched in her hands. She held it for a second and then held it out to Vic. "I'm hoping you can help me find him."

I stood next to Vic so that I could look at the photo over her shoulder. The boy appeared to be in his late teens, with the high cheekbones and sharp eyes of the Cheyenne. His hair was long and dark, with reddish highlights that must have been a genetic gift from his mother. He was wearing jeans and a baggy white t-shirt, his arms crossed over his narrow chest, his chin tilted upward in acknowledgement of the person behind the camera. I didn't recognize him, but the man standing to his left, mirroring his pose, looked vaguely familiar.

"That's his father," the woman said when I glanced up at her. "Eddie Many Bridges."

The tumblers fell into place and I nodded. I'd encountered Eddie on a handful of occasions. He lived on the Rez, but the last time I'd seen him, he had been working at A+ Auto Repair up in Sheridan. He was a pleasant, easy-going guy from what I remembered, hands grease-stained and work-roughened from his years working at his father's body shop.

Vic looked up at me, consternation etching her features, and then asked our guest, "Is this on the Rez, Mrs…?"

"Calloway," she said. "Bonnie Calloway." She hesitated as though she were thinking about offering her hand, but desisted and instead clasped them both together in front of her. "And yes, Brian lives on the Rez with his father." She looked back and forth between Vic and myself. "Is that a problem?"

Vic sighed, and I could see the frustration begin to stack up behind her eyes. "Probably. We don't have any authority out on the Rez. Have you tried talking to the Tribal Police?"

I narrowed my gaze at Bonnie Calloway. "What do you mean, you think he's missing?"

She tightened one hand's grip on the other. "Eddie says I'm being ridiculous. He says Brian is nineteen years old, and it's not unusual for him to disappear for a few days. He says that a bunch of the older boys on the Rez like to save up their money and go on these trips, you know, to music festivals or skiing or river rafting - that kind of thing." She took a breath that came out shakier than it went in. "But he's been gone for the more than a week now. And he's not answering his phone."

She turned to Vic. "I tried going to the Tribal Police first, but, they weren't what you would call receptive." She gestured to herself. "I don't think it helps that I'm not exactly in their target demographic."

"It's not like Matthias to ignore the situation if there's a chance somebody on the Rez might be in trouble," I said. I'd butted heads with the Tribal Police more than my fair share of times, but Matthias was a fierce defender of his people, and he didn't suffer threats to their safety lightly.

Bonnie Calloway started pacing a tight pattern in front of Vic's desk, clasping and unclasping her hands. "That's just it. I can't convince anyone that there is a problem. Brian is an adult. I can't prove that he's missing, so no one is willing to do anything. I just want to know where my boy is!" Her voice climbed a hill of octaves until it cracked. She forced the knuckles of one fist against her lips as though she were trying to keep anything else from escaping.

Vic pulled a chair out and herded Mrs. Calloway into it before the trembling woman's knees could give out on her completely.

I sat on the edge of Vic's desk while Vic went off to find a pack of tissues. "Do you live on the Rez yourself, Mrs. Calloway?" I didn't think I'd ever seen her before, but it was a big county, and I didn't know everyone - just almost everyone.

She shook her head as she gratefully accepted a handful of Kleenex from Vic. "No. Eddie and I divorced back when Brian was little. I moved to Evanston and Eddie came back to the Rez to help out with his parents. I remarried when Brian was eight, and we all decided it would be best if he came to live with Eddie." She stopped and blotted her eyes with a tissue. When she looked back up, she paused, her eyes cutting from Vic to me again. "I know it sounds awful. But we really were trying to do the best thing we could for Brian. We move around a lot with my husband's job, and it was really hard on Brian, always having to start over somewhere new. He said he felt out of place, and that nobody wanted to be friends with a 'half-breed'"

She gave the word a bitter, cutting edge, and fresh tears appeared on her cheeks. She looked at Vic. "I love my son, Deputy Moretti. He means the world to me. And he's missing. Please. Just help me find him. Please."

Vic and I exchanged glances again. I was already mulling over ideas in my head.

Who on the Rez might be willing to take Bonnie Calloway seriously? It might not require anything more than a few phone calls and a little legwork to track him down. But, then again, it might take considerably more than that. If Matthias' department wasn't willing to look for Brian Many Bridges yet, and our department couldn't, I wasn't sure how many other options the distraught mother might have. Maybe once the boy had been gone for a few more days…

Vic crossed her arms and leaned against her desk, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Calloway, but the Reservation is outside of our jurisdiction. We can't so much as set foot out there without stepping on the toes of the Tribal Police. Officially, there is nothing that we can do." A slow smile spread across her face, and she looked up at me.

"But you can."

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everyone who read and commented on chapter one. See? I said this was going to be a longer story. I'm just running behind, as with so many other aspects of my life. There is much more to come...eventually.

Thanks, as ever, to the best comma wrangler in the business, Katie F, who swears she enjoys editing this stuff even when she has enough work on her plate to keep four really stressed out people busy. Bless.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Bonnie Calloway's reddened eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, and I felt my heart sink down into the toe of my boots. "Can you, Sheriff...er, I mean Mr. Longmire? Can you help me find my son?"

"Walt," Vic said. "You can call him Walt." Her expression didn't change, but I could tell she was pleased with herself by the tone of her voice. We were going to have to have a serious talk.

"Well, I don't know, Mrs. Calloway" I said slowly. "Officially, I'm nobody at all. I'm just a retired sheriff. I'm not a private investigator. I don't have any more rights or privileges than any other private citizen. Maybe you should consider hiring someone who knows more about this kind of thing."

Vic turned and blinked innocently up at me. "Come on, Walt. Who would know more about this kind of thing than a retired sheriff?"

"Vic," I said, hoping she'd heed the warning in my voice. But I could tell by the way that she was still smiling that she wasn't about to heed a damn thing. We were definitely going to have to have a talk.

"Mrs. Calloway," Vic said, cheerfully ignoring me. "Why don't you write down your contact information, and Walt will get back to you. Are you staying in Durant?"

"Yeah." Still sniffling, Bonnie disappeared back into her bag and reemerged with a notebook and pen. Having something productive to do, even something as mundane as writing things down, seemed to help center her. "I'm staying at the Best Western for now - room 202, but you can always reach me on my cell."

I just stood there, helplessly, while Vic orchestrated a coup.

Bonnie finished writing and clicked her pen shut before dropping it back into her purse. She ripped the paper out of the notebook and held it out to me, and, not knowing what else to do, I took it.

"Thank you", she said. The gratitude in her voice made me wince internally.

"Mrs. Calloway..." I began, but she shook her head to stop me.

"Just think about it, Mr. Longmire. That's all I'm asking. Just think about it before you make a decision. Please."

Vic walked our guest to the door, assuring her that I would be in touch soon, and that she should go back to her room and rest. Only when the door had closed behind her and the sound of her footsteps had faded down the stairs did I speak.

"What the hell was that?"

Vic turned back to me and put her hands on her hips. "That was me getting you a job."

"I don't need a job. I'm retired."

She snorted. "That's such bullshit, Walt, and you know it."

"No, Vic. What's bullshit is what you just did to that woman. Did you even stop for a second and think about what you were saying to her? This isn't some kind of game that you can play just because you get an idea in your head. Her son is missing, and she's worried sick. Now, maybe there's an easy resolution, and maybe there's not. Hell, that boy might turn up tomorrow, confused as hell as to why anybody is looking for him. But what if he doesn't? She is a mother, and she is desperate for answers that I am in no position to find for her. If Matthias can't help her..."

"Matthias can help her," Vic interjected. "For whatever reason - probably because he's got his head up his ass, _again_ \- he's choosing not to. We can't help her, because it's out of our jurisdiction, and our hands are tied by more bureaucratic bullshit. You _can_ help her, Walt. That's the thing. You are exactly what she needs right now. And, I'm sorry, but she's exactly what you need right now, too." She slipped around me and headed back to her desk.

It was my turn to put my hands on my hips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She turned back to me and rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Who do you think you're fooling? Do you honestly think that either Cady or I actually believe that you drop in here all the time just to see us?" She held my gaze for a beat and then cocked her head thoughtfully to the side. "Holy shit."

"What?"

"You don't even realize it, do you?"

"Realize what?"

She gave a snort of laughter and dropped back into her chair. "That you keep coming in here so that you can stay in the middle of things. You miss all of this." She twirled her pencil around to encompass the room.

I pushed my hat up on my head, but took a moment before I responded. She wasn't exactly wrong. But she wasn't exactly right either. I missed aspects of the work, but I didn't miss the job. I'd never aspired to being Sheriff. Hell, I'd never even aspired to being a deputy. I'd fallen into the latter for want of an income, and been hoisted up into the former by Lucian as his last act before showing himself to the door. Becoming Sheriff was something that had happened to me as much as it was something I had achieved. As a profession, it was by turns frustrating and confining, dangerous and boring, and the pay was a joke without much of a punchline. But, by God, it had felt good to be a part of something meaningful. And that I did miss.

"Whatever you may think," I said finally. "It isn't your place to decide something like this without discussing it with me first. You understand? It's not fair to me, and it's sure as hell not fair to Bonnie Calloway."

She looked slightly abashed. "Okay. You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have railroaded you like that. It just all seemed to fall into place so perfectly, you know?" She sighed. "I'll tell you what, give me her information and I'll call and explain to her that I was out of line." She stood back up and came over to me with her hand outstretched. "I'll apologize to her, too."

I looked down at the slip of paper that I still held in my hand and considered it carefully before I folded it in half and stuck it in the breast pocket of my shirt.

Vic turned away quickly, trying to hide her smile.

"Don't ever do that again," I said, hoping that I sounded suitably stern given that I'd just buckled like an empty beer can.

"I won't," she said. But I didn't believe her.

Before I contacted Bonnie Calloway, I decided to check in with the Cheyenne Nation to see if he could shed any light on the current whereabouts of the potentially missing Brian Many Bridges. Henry was usually a safe place to start whenever it came to anything that might be going on out at the Rez. He didn't know everyone - just almost everyone. And any excuse was a good one. I didn't see my old friend nearly as much as I used to.

Around the same time that I retired, Henry had stepped gracefully into Malachi Strand's old job as head of security at the Four Arrows. Jacob Nighthorse was over in Englewood, doing a five-year stint for embezzlement, but the casino itself was in better hands than it had ever been. I heard about the occasional scuffle here and there, but nothing worse than what sometimes cropped up on a busy night at the Red Pony, or at any place in America that served alcohol, for that matter. And it was rare that anything escalated to the point where Absaroka's finest got called in. I was happy for Henry. The job suited him. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't miss catching a companionable beer with him at the Pony at the end of a long night. We still connected somewhat regularly, but the atmosphere at the casino was a little less casual than what I preferred and a lot noisier. And when I ordered a Rainier at the Four Arrows, it came in a glass.

"To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of your company, this evening?" Henry asked as he joined me in the casino restaurant. I had laid claim to one of the small, round bar tables that was positioned as far away from the jarring noise of the gaming floor as I could without setting up shop on the other side of the swinging door that led into the kitchen. Which Henry wouldn't let me do. I'd asked.

"I thought I'd come and try out that new poker machine y'all just put in."

Henry smiled. "No, you did not."

"No, I did not," I agreed. I nodded at the dark-haired young woman in a Four Arrows uniform that stopped by the table. She flashed me a bright smile full of even, white teeth as she set down a pair of bar napkins and then placed a glass of beer on the table in front of me and a cup of coffee in front of Henry. We hadn't ordered. We're just that predictable, I guess.

"Why do I get the feeling that this is not a social call?" Henry asked. He took a sip of his coffee and raised his eyebrows at me over the rim of the mug.

"I guess you could call it business," I said. "I was hoping you could give me some information about somebody who lives on the Rez.

The dark eyebrows stayed up. "I see. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the concept of retirement."

"Vic," I said simply, and raised the glass to my lips.

"Ah," Henry said. "She has decided that since you are now retired, you do not have enough to do?" "Something like that."

There was a short silence - or at least relatively, what with the noise from the casino floor and all - and then Henry asked, "And how is that going?" He took another sip of his coffee and looked away, ostensibly keeping an eye on the goings-on at the nearest bank of slot machines out on the gaming floor.

"What, me and Vic?" I was surprised by the question. I didn't mind being asked, but it wasn't the kind of thing Henry and I generally discussed. When I'd first told him about the change in the nature of my relationship with my deputy, he'd said, "Good. It is about time," and gone back to cleaning the glasses behind the bar. That was the one and only time he had ever commented on it.

"We're doing fine."

He set his coffee mug down, laced his fingers together on top of the heavily lacquered surface of the table, and regarded me evenly. "You are not second-guessing yourself out of happiness, are you?" I blinked at him. "I don't think so." He didn't look convinced. "I know you too well, Walter Longmire. I know that you let small things become big things that then become insurmountable things. I just want to make sure that you are not going to talk yourself out of this wonderful thing that you have become a part of."

"She's sixteen years younger than I am, Henry."

"And?"

"That's only nine years older than Cady."

"And?"

I grinned at him. "She doesn't give a shit."

"I take it that is a direct quote?"

"Of course."

"And?" I shrugged. "If it doesn't bother her, it doesn't bother me." I took another sip of my beer. "Does it bother Cady?"  
"Not according to Cady."

That had been an interesting conversation.

After having walled myself off for so many years in the wake of Martha's death, opening up my life, and my heart, to Vic and been a lengthy and sometimes difficult process. But Vic was like trumpets to Jericho. And once the walls were down, the only thing I really feared was having to tell my daughter that I'd finally moved on from her mother.

I had invited Cady out to the cabin for dinner one night before we officially started the process of transitioning me out of the Sheriff's office and her into it. I'd grilled a couple of trout, while Cady put together a salad and warmed the fresh bread I'd picked up from the Basque bakery in town. I'd been nervous as hell, and it hadn't taken her long to notice. "What's going on, Dad?" she asked. "You're being really quiet tonight. You're not having second thoughts about things, are you?"

"No. Not at all," I reassured her. "You're going to be a great sheriff. Better than I ever was."

She laughed and took a drink of her beer. "Flatterer."

"For you? Always." I gave her a lopsided smile, and then took a deep breath, both literally and metaphorically. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something else."

Her smile faded slightly. "Is everything okay?" I could read the memory of another one of these heart-to-heart moments of revelation as it flashed across her face. Only last time, it had been her mother with news, and it had turned the world upside down for all of us.

I reached across the table and put my hand over one of hers. I could feel the tension in her knuckles where she was gripping her fork too tightly. "Everything is fine. Better than fine. Everything is really good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." I gave her hand a squeeze. "Come on. It's a nice night. Let's go outside."

The day had been warm, but the air outside was cooling rapidly with the setting of the sun. Cady threw a shawl over her shoulders and followed me out onto the porch. I sat in my usual place on the top step and patted the spot on the worn wooden boards next to me. Cady sat down and looped her arm through mine. The sun was just starting to turn the horizon red. We sat for a few minutes and watched the shadows unfurl and stretch out across the grass.

"i'm seeing someone," I said, without preamble.  
"Okay." She squinted out across the yard, down to where the horse was grazing lazily by the fence. "You've dated people before without feeling like you had to talk to me about it." She paused. "I guess that means it's pretty serious, huh?"

"Yep."

She nodded in understanding. "Is it anyone I know?"

"It's Vic."

She was quiet for a long moment. "She's a lot younger than you."

"Yep."

"You know people are going to talk."

"Probably."

"Does that bother you?" "Nope." I looked at her. "Does it bother you?"

"Does she make you happy?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. "Then it doesn't bother me." She leaned into me and I could feel the comforting warmth of her body seeping into mine. "I really like Vic, Dad. I always have."

"Me, too." I put my arm around my daughter and pulled her close.

Together, we watched the sky grow darker. The last of the sunlight escaped beyond the mountains like it was being chased by the twilight. Cady's features grew indistinct as the night began to settle in around us.  
"Dad, can I ask you kind of a strange question?

"Shoot."

"Do you think Mom would have liked her?'

I knew what she was really asking, even if she didn't. How could the same man fall for two such completely dissimilar women? The answer was simple. I hadn't. I wasn't the same man that had married Martha all those years ago. I wasn't even the same man that had lost her all those years later. I was some soft, new, hybrid creature that had been created by all the versions of myself that had come before.

"I don't know," I said, fully aware of how unsatisfactory my answer was. "Your mom had a knack for seeing the good in everyone. But she liked people who were genuine and direct, people who had a little steel in their spine." I smiled to myself then, thinking how I had just described Vic, Cady, Martha herself, and even Ruby - all of the women in my life who'd made it their business to keep me in line and out of trouble. "So, yeah, I think she probably would have liked Vic."

Cady tilted her head so she could look up at me. Her voice was soft. "You love her, don't you?"

It was my turn to be quiet.

I'd never said the words. Not to Vic, not even to myself. But it had been true for years - from the moment she'd first come stomping into my office looking for a job, in fact. Maybe that was wrong - especially back then. But I couldn't help myself. Saying it out loud felt like it would be a kind of bookend to everything in my life that had happened up until that moment, the period at the end of a very long sentence. Carriage return, new paragraph. Every breath I took from that point on would be part of a different story, one which would begin when I admitted, to myself and everyone else, that I was in love with Vic Moretti.

"Yeah, Punk," I said. "Yeah, I do."

Cady nodded. I'd given her the answer she both expected and wanted to hear. "I think Mom would have liked her, too."

I had kissed the top of her head then and gone back to watching the stars slowly appear in the darkened sky above us. Maybe I didn't need my daughter's blessing, but I was happy to have it all the same.

"So, Mr. Retired-but-not-really," Henry said, after he had polished off the last of his coffee and signaled to the smiling waitress for a refill. I was starting to see where he got the energy to deal with this place day in and day out. "Who is this person on the Rez who is important enough to bring you all the way out here on your day off?"

I ignored the sarcasm. "I'm looking for information on Brian Many Bridges, or his father Eddie."

The Bear looked thoughtful, which I appreciated. "I am familiar with Eddie, though I do not know him well. He works at his father's auto repair shop in Sheridan. I believe he is divorced, but the boy lives with him on the Rez."

I nodded. "So far, that all lines up with what the mother said."

"The mother? I was not aware that she was still in the picture."

I shrugged. "She might not be, but she came into the office today looking for someone to help her find her son. She thinks he is missing."

"Is he?"

"I don't know," I replied. "There seems to be a difference of opinion on the subject."

"Whose opinion?"

"The mother, Bonnie Calloway, says that he's missing. The father, Eddie Many Bridges, maintains that, while he cannot pinpoint the exact whereabouts of his son at the moment, he is still not what one would call 'missing'."

"That is an interesting distinction," Henry said.

"I thought so, too, but apparently, some of the older boys on the Rez like to save up their money and go on road trips a few times a year. Eddie seems to think the boy is just on one of his trips and will show up any day now."

"And to that the mother says...?"

"That he's not usually gone this long, and he isn't answering his cell phone."

Henry nodded. He drained the last of his second cup of coffee and then began tidying up the table as the waitress returned to collect his mug and my empty glass. Not for the first time, I reflected on how dedicated Henry always was to anything that he had set his mind on, and was grateful that he and I were on the same side...usually.

He thanked the waitress as she departed, and then turned back to me. "Perhaps we should pay Eddie a visit tomorrow morning, and find out a bit more about this trip that Brian is supposed to be on. It is a place to start, at least."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "We?"

Henry smiled."What would the Lone Ranger be without his Indian companion?"

"Considerably out of his depth."

"Exactly. I will see you tomorrow morning at nine."

* * *

A/N: I am determined to finish this story, even if my stupid brain has other ideas. You see, I am a married mother of two AND a nursing student with an anxiety disorder, so there are times when I can write, and then there are times when I very much cannot. Here's to effective and affordable psychiatric medication!

Thank you to everyone who takes a few minutes out of their day to read my self-indulgent fanfic nonsense. And virtual hugs to those of you who take the extra time to leave a review. (Seriously, you guys. You have no idea what getting a positive review does for a fanfic writer. We can coast on that feeling for daaaaays)

And, as always, my eternal gratitude to Katie F. for not only fixing my horrible grammar and syntax, but also for telling me which parts are funny and in character, and especially for adding encouraging comments such as "EAT A BAG OF LANDSCAPING DICKS" to the parts she *really* likes.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I wasn't sure I would ever get used to waking up next to Vic. She slept like it was a competitive sport, and then exploded out of bed every morning like a racehorse off the gate. Mostly, I didn't think anything of the difference in our ages. First thing in the morning, however, I was forcibly reminded of how young she was, and how old I felt. On the other hand, she usually slept naked, or as good as, which did tend to brighten my mood long enough for the coffee to kick in.

This morning, despite the chill, she was flitting around barefoot in boy shorts and a tank top with her long, blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders. I sat at the kitchen table with my hands wrapped around my mug, enjoying the warmth and covertly watching her while she doctored her coffee with a heavy splash of milk and entirely too much sugar. She toasted, buttered and ate a piece of toast, hovering over the sink to catch the crumbs rather than bothering to get a plate down out of the cabinet. Then she dropped into the chair next to me, and stretched her long, smooth calves out across my lap and wiggled her toes at me. I was suddenly having a hard time remembering why I needed to go out into the cold when it had just gotten so warm inside.

"When is Henry coming by to pick you up?" she asked, drawing my attention regretfully away from her legs.

"He said nine, which means he'll be here at eight forty-five."

She glanced up at the clock over my head. "It's eight thirty now." She scooted forward and bent her knees so she could dig her toes into my thigh. "What a shame we don't have more time." She blinked coyly up at me through her lashes.

"I don't know," I said, thoughtfully. "I could get a lot done in fifteen minutes."

She snorted a laugh and pushed away from me, her chair legs barking against the wooden floor. She stood up. "It's going to have to wait, Casanova. Some of us still have a job to get to, and I need to shower."

"I could help with that," I offered gallantly, but I was only rewarded with another snort. Then, as she passed my chair, she reached up, stripped her tank top off over her head and dropped it in my lap, and then sashayed topless off to the bathroom.

"Later," she promised over one bare shoulder before she disappeared around the corner.

Boy howdy.

The shower went silent exactly fifteen minutes later, just as I heard Henry's sharp rap against the front door. I pulled the door open with one hand and offered him a fresh mug of coffee with the other.

"I knew I remained friends with you for a reason," he said as he came inside and accepted the mug from my hand. He took a sip of coffee and glanced around the room. "This is the first time I have been here since Vic moved in. It is nice to see that you have allowed her to put her feminine touch on the decor."

I gave the inaccurately named great room a critical look. It looked much the same as it had for the past six years - well worn furniture, an excessive number of unshelved books, and an embarrassing stack of dusty boxes that had yet to be unpacked, and, if I was being honest, probably never would be. I could tell Henry was being facetious, but I wasn't quite sure what he was implying. "Well, the Philadelphia Flyers blanket on the sofa is hers, so."

"As is that, I assume," Henry said, nodding at the tiny white tank top that was still laying on the kitchen table. "It does not look as though it would fit you."

I felt my face color from the open neck of my shirt on up into my hairline. I snatched up the scrap of fabric and tossed it through the open door into the bedroom. Henry smirked. I gave him a dirty look.

"I've told her to make herself at home," I said. I knew I sounded a little defensive, but it was the truth. "Vic's just not much on stuff."

"She's not much on the feminine touch, either," Vic said as she came out of the bedroom, wearing her duty shirt and jeans, her still wet hair pulled into a sleek ponytail at the back of her head.

"It is no wonder you two get along so well," Henry said. "You have so much in common." He took another sip of his coffee and winked at Vic.

She rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling.

Vic sat on the edge of the sofa and started pulling on her Browning tactical boots. "You boys have fun today. But try not to get arrested. We're still short staffed, and I won't have time to bail you out if you ruffle too many of Matthias' feathers."

"We're just going to be asking a few questions," I said. "I can't think of any reason that would trouble the Indian Police." I looked at Henry. "Can you?"

"Not a single one," Henry agreed.

"I can think of about a dozen reasons before you two even set foot on the Rez." She grabbed her duty belt from the top of the piano and buckled it around her waist.

"Hey, you're the one who got me into this," I reminded her.

"I merely gave you the push you so desperately needed," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She looked up at Henry. "Try to keep him out of trouble, please."

"I will do my best," he said, giving her a formal nod of his head.

"Why does everyone always assume that I'm the one that's going to get into trouble?" I said to the room in general.

Vic and Henry raised matching eyebrows at each other.

"It is usually you," Henry said.

"It really is," Vic agreed. She shrugged into her leather bomber jacket and headed for the door. "Bye, Dear. I should be home in time for dinner." She blew me a fluttery, wholly sarcastic kiss, banged out the door and down the steps, and then, a few seconds later, went roaring up the driveway in her truck, kicking up gravel as she attempted to reach cruising speed - if not altitude - before she got to the main road.

Henry, who was more than accustomed to Vic's habit of both entering and exiting any situation with all the grace and subtlety of a four ton wrecking ball, merely finished his coffee, rinsed his mug and set it in the sink. "Are you ready to go?"

I nodded and reached for my jacket. "I spoke to Eddie Many Bridges this morning. He was pretty dismissive, but he did say he'd talk to us. I figured we'd start there and then see if we can locate any of the other boys that supposedly went on this most recent trip with Brian."

"That sounds like a solid plan," Henry said. He preceded me out the door and started towards his truck.

"Where are you going?" I asked, as I pulled the door closed behind me. "I'm parked around the side."

"I am aware of that," Henry said without turning back around. "I am driving." He got into his truck and slammed the door behind him, neatly cutting off any attempt I might have made to argue with him. Instead, I sighed and went around to the passenger side, wrenched open the heavy door, which gave with a bone-jarring squeal, and climbed into the only motor vehicle in the entire world that I have ever actively hated.

"I really hate your truck," I said conversationally as Henry started the green '63 three-quarter-ton pickup that he had named Rez Dawg, but which I preferred to call a bunch of other less polite names.

"So you have said," Henry replied, unperturbed. "On many occasions." We had performed this same vignette with little variation many times over the years. He loved that truck, but I had never been able to figure out why. It either broke down, got a flat, overheated or simply burst into flames every time we drove it anywhere. And every time it did, he'd haul it up on blocks out behind the Red Pony and tinker with it until it was running again. Such as it was.

With no small amount of physical effort, he wrestled the enormous truck into a lumbering parabola in the yard and headed back towards the road.

"You know, my truck has a heater."

"This truck has a heater, too."

"Oh, so you fixed it?"

"I did."

"Did you fix the holes in the floorboards too?" I asked, though it was entirely a rhetorical question since I could plainly see the gravel driveway give way to the paved asphalt of the highway through the rusted out fissures underneath my boots.

"I did not," Henry replied in the same unflappable tone of voice he always used when I badgered him about his truck.

"I will buy you a new truck," I said. "Today. We can go to the dealership in Sheridan, and I will buy you a truck off the lot. Any one you want. Your choice."

"I do not want a new truck. I like this one."

I gave it up as the lost cause I knew it to be and switched gears. "I spoke to Bonnie Calloway last night and told her I would ask around a little bit. She said she doesn't know many of Brian's friends personally, but she did give me a couple of names." I fished my notebook out of my jacket pocket and flipped it open to the notes I had taken the night before. "Ryan Running Feet and Donny Black Feather are Brian's friends from high school. All three of them have been working as rig hands out at Casper Drilling for about a year. They work two-and-one rotations, so after every fourteen days on shift, they have seven days off."

"And that is when they go on the trips she was talking about?"

"Yep. Not after every rotation, but yes, most of them."

"That is a lot of trips."

"And a lot of chances for a kid that age to run into trouble."

Henry glanced over at me while we waited for a pair of pedestrians to cross in front of the grocery store. "You think he ran into trouble?"

"I don't know what to think yet," I said. "At this point I'm still holding out hope that he'll show up on his own with a world class hangover and a great story."

"But you do not think that is what is going to happen."

I shook my head, though Henry's eyes were focused back on the road in front of us. "In twenty-five years on the job, I was only very rarely pleasantly surprised."

Eddie Many Bridges was elbow deep in a Chevy Silverado inside one of the large service bays when we pulled into the parking lot of the A+ Auto Repair. He was a tall Cheyenne with broad shoulders and heavily muscled arms from his years of wrangling engines and mufflers into and out of the many and varied forms of transportation one might expect to find in ranching territory. The other vehicles waiting to be serviced were a new Ford F-150, an old GMC C/K 10, and, incongruously, a bright purple Volkswagen Beetle. Never let it be said that the people of rural Wyoming lack the eclectic style of the big city.

Eddie looked up as Henry and I made our noisy escape from the truck. He called something over his shoulder in the direction of the office and then reached for a shop towel, wiping his hands on it as he made his way towards us. He wore a pair of dark blue coveralls that I suspected came from the same 'big and tall' section of the catalog that I used to order my duty shirts. At six foot five, I rarely have to look up to anyone, but Eddie Many Bridges had me by a good two inches.

"Ha'aahe, Standing Bear," he said, greeting Henry with a nod, which was graciously reciprocated. Then he turned to me. "Good afternoon, Sheriff. I would offer to shake hands, but…" he held up the shop towel and displayed the palms of his grease-stained hands.

"Afternoon, Eddie," I said with a nod of my own. "It's just Walt these days. I haven't been on the county payroll for a while now."

"I had heard as much." He said. "You freelancing now?"

"Something like that," I said without elaborating. I didn't want to get into the specifics of how I'd ended up here, since I still wasn't entirely sure myself. "Look, I know you're busy, and I don't want to keep you for long. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about Brian?"

Eddie stuffed the shop rag into his back pocket and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's like I said on the phone. I think Bonnie is getting worked up over nothing. I don't mean to be dismissive of her fears, but I think she is jumping the gun by contacting the police. Brian has gone on many of these trips and he rarely keeps in touch while he's away. He's nineteen years old - a man, or at least he thinks of himself as one."

"Well, I'm not the police, so," I said with a quick, and, I hoped, encouraging smile. "He'll probably come home before we have a chance to find him, but maybe we can put his mom's mind at ease in the meantime."

"Fine." The word came out on a sigh. "I still think you're wasting your time, but I suppose it's yours to waste. What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about this most recent trip the boys went on."

"It was some music festival outside of Bozeman," Eddie said. "Rock the Vally or some nonsense like that - a bunch of bands that no one in their right mind would pay to see, anyway."

I nodded in understanding. I had stopped keeping up with popular music back before the Eagles broke up. Most of what they called music these days gave me a headache. Fats Waller and Duke Ellington were a long time gone.

"Who went with him this time?"

"It's always the same group of kids. Brian and three other guys that he works with at Casper Drilling. Ryan Running Feet, Donny Black Feather and Shane Parker. They're all on the same rotation, so they get the same time off."

"Shane Parker?" Henry asked, his dark eyebrows lifting slightly as his only sign of surprise.

"Yeah. You know him?"

"A little." Henry flicked a quick glance at me. His voice was placid, but I could tell he knew more than just a little about Shane Parker. I let it go for the moment, He'd fill me in later.

"When did they head out?"

"Last Tuesday after their shift ended," Eddie replied. "The festival started on Wednesday, but they wanted to be there for the opening act, so they drove up that night. Donny picked Brian up from the house around five thirty. They were going to stop and get something to eat on the way."

"When were they supposed to come back?"

Eddie shifted his weight and looked away, seeming uncomfortable for the first time. "Well, Brian originally said they'd be back Saturday, but they sometimes change their plans."

I could understand the reason for his discomfort. It was Monday now. Brian was already two days overdue.

"Does he usually let you know if his plans change?"

"Usually, but not always."

"Did he let you know this time?"

"No. Not this time."

Henry spoke up again. "When are they scheduled to be back at work?"

"Tomorrow morning…if they bother showing up before then." Eddie stopped examining the gas station across the road and turned back to me. "I know you probably think I'm being callous - that I don't care what happens to my son. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. I love Brian, but I also know him. And we've been down this road a dozen times or more. He isn't a bad kid, but he does what he wants when he wants, and damn the consequences. He always had problems in school - first with the white kids in Evanston and then with the Indian kids on the Rez. He always said he wasn't white enough to be white or red enough to be red." Eddie made a disparaging sound in the back of his throat and spat onto the hard packed earth next to his boots. "He's had a mesa sized chip on his shoulder for most of his life. He dropped out of school as soon as he could, even though Bonnie and I begged him not to. He's lost or quit at least ten jobs in the last two years because he gets bored and stops showing up. I've worn myself out trying to get that kid to buckle down."

I held up my hands "You'll get no judgement from me," I said. "Raising kids is hard as hell. And if they've written an instruction manual, I never got my copy."

Eddie managed to approximate something like a smile, but the expression never made it as far as his eyes. "I want him to show back up in time to keep this job - it's the best one he's ever had. He even has health and dental insurance. But if he met a girl, or scored some drugs, he'll just see it as a chance to start over when he's ready to come home. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if he just decided to get high and follow one of those terrible excuses for a band for a while." His expression contracted at the idea, but he shook it off and his dark eyes met mine again. "I really hope you can track him down so that Bonnie can stop worrying, but I'll tell you, Sheriff, it'll be a temporary reprieve."

* * *

A/N: Book!Walt bears a passionate hatred for Henry's truck, which never fails to amuse me. Neither does Henry's anthropomorphic fondness for 'Rez Dawg', and his certainty that 'she' only misbehaves when Walt is around because she knows Walt doesn't like her.

Still determined to finish this sucker. Maybe even sometime before I retire from the nursing career that I am still going to school for. Maybe. Thank you for your patience, and for stopping in for a visit to my own personal Absaroka County. And thank you for the lovely and encouraging comments that never fail to make my day a little brighter. It's a small fandom, but it's made up entirely of delightful people!

Much appreciation to Craig Johnson for creating these characters and the world in which they live. If you have never read the books, I can't recommend them enough. They are very different from the show (and if you're only there for Walt/Vic, you have a three book wait, but it's worth it!), but I completely adore both versions.

All the usual gratitude and genuflecting to my bestie, Katie F, who has slogged through every chapter of everything I have written for the past seven years or so, and still graciously beats the hell out of it with her fierce grammar hammer so that I won't embarrass myself too badly on the internets. If I have one piece of writing advice for anyone, it is this: befriend a former English teacher.


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